


navigating the high-stakes game of inter-species politics (or, how to not piss off the aliens)

by GeneratorCat



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: M/M, everyone is an alien except jason, he's also purple, jason todd is a gentleman, jaytim in space, quiet and patient pining, steph has wings, tim is the captain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:56:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22114579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeneratorCat/pseuds/GeneratorCat
Summary: Jason wakes up on an alien spaceship, which is scary and cool becausealiensand also the captain is, like, really pretty.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Comments: 41
Kudos: 303





	1. getting acquainted with the ship and her crew (or, why not to follow an alien bird-lady's advice)

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been writing this story on and off (mostly off) since February of 2018, and it probably would have died out completely if chibinightowl hadn’t resurrected it (twice!), and then they went and beta’d the crap out of it like a rock-star, so a round of applause for chibi please <3
> 
> World-building is hard :/ this isn't a firefly au but it is firefly-esque-- as in, the general aesthetic is the same, and i imagine the ship in the story to be like _serenity_ and i think i stole a term or two. overall it's kinda... firefly but with aliens from the DC universe and some stuff i made up, all mixed randomly. :D
> 
> also i didn't put a rating because i honestly don't know yet if it's gonna get smutty or not

Jason feels warmth. Not a whole lot, but even some is enough, seeing as last he knew he was about to freeze to death. He hears the distant rumbling of an engine, feels the vibrations through the hard, metal surface he’s lying on, and nearly cries. After drifting in his ship with no power for three days, the sound of a functioning vessel is sweet, sweet music to his ears. 

Music. There’s music, too. At least, he thinks that’s what that noise is, though it’s distant and foreign. 

It takes some effort to open his eyes, and a few moments for his vision to clear. When it does the first thing he sees is a face very close to his own. 

“ _ Fuck! _ ” he yelps, and tries to scramble away but he can’t because his arms are strapped to the table. He can’t see the restraints, as his body is covered in a thick, scratchy, brown,  _ warm _ – that’s the most important thing– blanket. But he can feel them. “What the hell?” 

“You’re awake!” says the person still leaning over him. He shines a light into Jason’s eye and  _ tsks _ when he blinks. “Keep ‘em open, I need to see how they dilate. Atta boy. Hmm, looks good. I think. Never worked on a… human, right?” 

“Who are you?” Jason asks, adrenaline pumping but years of training keeping him calm. “Why am I tied down?”

“I’m the doctor and I just said, I’ve never worked on your kind before,” the man answers in a tone that sounds like it should come with a  _ duh, dummy _ at the end. “Don’t know if it’s safe yet.”

_ Your kind. _ Jason’s mind catches that and files it away with some confusion. What  _ kind _ exactly is this man, if not like him? If not human? He appears human. Short, black hair; two blue eyes; sun-tanned skin; a nose and a mouth and arms and legs and everything humans have. He looks like someone Jason could have worked with, lived next door to, taken out on a date. 

He yanks at the restraints. “Let me go.”

The doctor tucks the flashlight into a pocket of his cargo pants and fishes around in two others until finally finding a small tablet. A few clicks and then he fixes those bright blue eyes on Jason expectantly, finger poised over the device. “Are you feeling dizzy or nauseated? Experiencing disorientation? Do you have sensation in your extremities? Can you remember your name? How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Untie me,” Jason demands. 

“Did you not understand my questions?”

Closing his eyes, he takes a moment. Grinds his teeth and then, “No, no, yes, Jason Todd, and you’re not holding up any fingers.” 

“Very good,” the doctor says, recording the information. “Good to meet ya, Jason. I’m Kon.”

“Where am I?” Jason looks around the small room but can’t see much from his position, just a light overhead and counters lining the walls on either side. But they must be on a spaceship. It feels like a spaceship. Although… that can’t be right. It’s impossible for another Earth vessel to be out this far. “Who’s in charge here?” 

“I am,” comes the answer in two different voices. One from Kon and the other from the man who’s just stepped into the room. At first Jason thinks there might be a problem with his vision, but no, the man’s skin really is purple. Jason is reminded of nature documentaries he used to watch, of jungles or caves or the deep ocean, and they showed these fascinating creatures that looked like they belonged on other planets. They were beautiful and dangerous. Otherworldly.  _ Alien. _ Only they weren’t, not truly. This man is.

So. Definitely not a vessel from Earth, then. 

“Excuse me,” Kon huffs at the new presence, “this is the  _ sickbay _ and I’m the  _ doctor _ . That makes me in charge.” 

“Oh we’re up to doctor now? Last week it was nurse practitioner.” The purple man looks at Jason. “The month before that he was just a nurse. Started out as a paramedic.”

“Actually I started out as an intern in engineering,” Kon corrects idly, still making notes on his pad. 

“Oh that’s right. That was a bad day for everyone.” He tilts his head like he’s looking off into the distance, off into a memory, and shudders. Jason realises exactly what’s different about him (aside from the purple skin). His eyes are black. No pupil, no iris, no white. All inky darkness. It should be impossible to tell where he’s looking but somehow Jason knows when his attention turns back to him. “But I’m the captain, so I’m in charge.”

“Your authority is not recognised in my sickbay.”

“The sickbay of  _ my _ ship?”

“Look I don’t care which of you gives the order,” Jason snaps, regaining some hold of himself, “just as long as someone unties me right the fuck now!” 

The two blink at him. 

“One more question,” Kon says. Jason doesn’t realise he’s been wearing a small smile until it leaves– but he was, and now it’s gone. His expression is serious as he asks, “Do you believe yourself to be, in any way, a danger to this ship or crew?”

“Only if you’re a danger to me,” he answers honestly. 

Kon and the captain exchange a look, and his expression eases again. “Alrighty then!” 

Jason watches carefully as Kon approaches and unbuckles the straps around his wrists. When he steps back, Jason sits up slowly, the blanket falling to pool in his lap and his torso is exposed to the chill of the room, only covered by his thin white undershirt. He wants to pull the blanket back up, wrap it around his shoulders, but settles for leaving it on his legs and yanking up the top half of his flight suit which had been down around his waist. He zips it all the way to his neck and feels better, to be covered, both from the cold and the men’s eyes. “Thanks. Now, where exactly am I and how did I get here?” 

The man with purple skin steps forward, chunky combat boots thumping on the metal floor and a long, dark coat swirling around his legs. His hair is long and dark like the coat, one side of his head twisted back in small braids that meet into each other, eventually into one rope on his shoulder, reminding Jason of old renderings he’s seen of Vikings. “This is my ship,  _ Titans _ , and you got here when we heard your distress signal and found your vessel floating toward an asteroid belt. We brought you aboard and Kon,” he nods toward the other who gives a little wave, “managed to keep you from dying from hypothermia and dehydration.”

“Thank you,” Jason says. 

Kon shrugs. “No big. It was fun. Like I said, new species and all.”

New species. _ _

Well. Alright then.

Jason thinks he’s handling the confirmation of alien life– and first contact with said life– fairly well, considering he was never prepped for this. His mission training did not include a course in alien relations. Primarily because no one believed meeting aliens was within the realm of possibility, given his mission parameters, and the fact that they didn’t know aliens really existed.

“And my ship?” 

“We’re towing her. She’s pretty small, but so are we, and the cargo hold is already full right now.” 

Jason breathes a relieved sigh. “Thanks.”

“So,” the captain says, his dark eyes pinned on Jason, “wanna tell us what happened to you?”

“Might be easier to do this with everyone,” Kon suggests. “So we don’t have to repeat it.”

The captain nods. “Good idea.” He steps over to an intercom system mounted on the wall and presses a button, speaking into the mic that projects his voice to every room of the ship, presumably. “I need all personnel at the dining table. I mean  _ now, _ Steph.”

He turns back to Jason. “You g–” 

He’s interrupted by a staticky voice shooting back over the intercom. “Already here, bitch!” 

Kon smiles, but the captain ignores both him and the voice. “You good to walk?”

Nodding, Jason sets aside the blanket on the table and stands with some difficulty. He feels like he’s wearing small weights all over his body. The gravity on this ship must be heavier than Earth’s gravity. So he’s a little unsteady, but it’s certainly not enough to keep him from doing what needs to be done. Now that the initial shock of waking up after he thought he’d never wake again– and on an alien ship, no less– has worn down some, his years of military training reassert themselves. He almost salutes but instead folds his hands behind himself and stands at attention, back straight and chin up. He’s not reporting to  _ his _ CO but this person is still  _ a _ CO, even if it’s an alien one, and so he naturally falls into soldier-mode. Besides, he has no directives on how to conduct himself in this situation, and he figures formal and professional are a safe bet. “Sir.”

“At ease, soldier,” the captain says, and he’s clearly joking, but Jason relaxes anyway, instinctively. The captain notices. “Really, you can chill out. We’re pretty casual around here.” 

Kon snorts. He’s ignored, again. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Jason.” 

“I’m–” he makes a sound Jason doesn’t recognise, something with a click and a hum that Jason’s human vocal cords can’t come close to replicating– he just knows it. 

Jason runs it over in his head, tries to parse out the sounds. “Tim?” he tries. 

The captain shrugs. “Eh, close enough.”

Now that he’s upright, Jason can see just how little Captain Tim is. The alien captain stands more than a head shorter than him, which makes Kon appear massive by comparison. Of course, Kon really is massive, since he’s a good two inches taller than him and much bulkier, which is saying something because Jason isn’t small by any means. Kon looks like a wall of muscle. Jason wonders at the physical differences between the two of them; though he looks it, Kon isn’t human, and Tim obviously isn’t either. Both alien, but not the same kind. Not the same species. 

How many species are there, out here in space, entire civilisations living lives the people of Earth know nothing about? 

They lead Jason out of the sickbay and through an open sitting area crowded with stacks of crates, through a cargo hold that he can barely make out the dimensions of because it’s so full of the same crates, and up some stairs and down a hall lined with more crates that turns sharply a few times and Jason thinks the design of the ship (and also, the crates) is very strange. Eventually they enter a room with a small kitchen on one side and a table taking up most of the rest of the space. The walls here are painted a bright violet that’s almost a perfect match to the shade of the captain’s skin, too close to be a coincidence. 

That strange sound he heard when he first came to is louder here, and he’s pretty sure now it is music– there’s instruments and a beat and vocalising and a melody, though nothing like what he’s used to. When he sees the woman dancing in the kitchen, his very first thought is:  _ Angel. _ She has bright blonde hair scooped up into a messy bun and streaks of grease on her face, and Jason is very impressed. Not because she’s an amazing dancer, but because she manages to avoid knocking anything over with her massive wings.  _ Wings. _ Sprouting from between her shoulder blades and covered in light grey feathers. Even tucked in close to her back, they’re huge; the tops reach a foot or so above her head, and the bottom tips brush her calves. 

There’s another woman, watching the angel with a fond smile. She’s small with dark hair and dark eyes (but not dark like the captain’s) and when Jason enters the room her gaze snaps to him and stays there. 

“Oh good, everyone’s here,” Captain Tim says as he sits at the head of the table. Kon drops himself into the chair next to him and leans back casually, legs sprawled open. 

So this is the entire ship’s crew. 

All four of them. 

“Turn that off, Steph,” Captain Tim orders. “Come meet our rescue.”

The blonde reaches over to a panel on the wall and taps once, making the music stop. Eyeing Jason critically, she walks over to the table and takes a seat, her wings shuffling to accommodate the chair and not get crushed. “Hey. I’m Steph,” she says, and points the other girl who has followed to sit next to her. “That’s Cass.” 

Cass nods silently. 

Jason stands just inside the door, instinctively placing his back to the wall and keeping himself near the exit. “I’m Commander Jason Todd.” 

Tim leans forward on the table. “Why don’t you tell us what happened, Commander.” It’s not a question and Jason doesn’t take it as such.

“I’m a test pilot for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Earth. My ship, the  _ Hermes PT14 _ , is a prototype craft for inter-system exploration. This was the first manned flight, and the mission was just to reach the edge of the system and come back. When I passed the last planet in our system, I’d gone farther than any human before.

“The problem is…” He clears his throat. “I wasn’t supposed to keep going. But the navigation stopped responding and I couldn’t turn around. The engine started to ratchet up faster and faster, and I couldn’t shut it off. I just… kept going. Eventually it ran out of fuel and shut down. I had no power, no life support, no food or water at that point. I passed out, and then woke up here.”

He glances away from the spot on the far wall he’d been talking to, looks at the people watching him. “So thank you. For saving my ship, and me.” 

“So you guys finally made it out of the system? Congrats,” the captain says. “Though I guess it wasn’t very successful, huh?”

Jason blinks. “Excuse me?”

“It’s still impressive,” Steph says to Tim. “Last I’d heard, they were still crawling around the big one with the rings.”

She turns to Jason and he offers, “Saturn,” distantly. 

She smiles. “That’s the one! From Saturn to all the way out here in a few years? Not bad.”

The captain shrugs. “Not great, either. The Causicans made it from first flight to first contact in half the time, and they’re idiots.”

“They’re not idiots,” Kon argues, “they just care more about art and shit.” 

“Exactly,” Tim says, as if that just proves his point. 

“Wait.” They all stop to look back at Jason. “You know about us? Humans? And Earth?”

“We’ve been watching the Earth channel for years now,” Steph tells him. “And your internet is fun to tap into. Some crazy shit on there, dude.” 

Captain Tim clarifies. “We pick up your broadcasting signals. People all the way over in the Corvus system watch  _ Game of Thrones _ .” 

Cass nods seriously. 

“You all know about us,” Jason says, like maybe if he speaks it out loud it will make some sort of sense. “You watch our TV shows.”

“The Feds keep track of any species that might join the larger intergalactic community one day and have been monitoring your people ever since you landed on your moon.”

“What the  _ fuck _ ?” Jason says weakly. He closes his eyes for a long moment. Then, “Okay, since you know about Earth and where it is, you can take me back, right?”

The captain sucks in a breath through his teeth (very sharp teeth, Jason notices). “We  _ can _ , just not any time soon. We’re making a delivery to Dramon and Earth is completely out of our way. We can’t turn around. If we’re not there on time for the drop off, the cargo will spoil and our client will probably skin us alive or something equally unpleasant. And worse, we’ll be stuck with a ship  _ full _ of rotten goods.”

“And after?” Jason asks. 

“If we don’t get another job between now and then, we could make it to Earth in about…” Tim taps his claws on the table top, calculating. “Four standard months?” 

“How long is that?” Jason asks. “I don’t know what a standard month is.” 

“Roughly half one Earth year.” 

“ _ Six months! _ But what about– there’s got to be an official channel for this, right? You said there are rules, so can’t you take me to whatever police force you have out here and–”

Captain Tim shakes his head sharply, but it’s Kon who answers. “Oh hell no, not happening. We aren’t going anywhere near the Feds.”

Steph nods in agreement. “If we flashed our ass to the Feds, we’d be incredibly, unimaginably fucked.” 

“Feds?”

“The government out here,” she supplies. 

“But I need to talk to them so I can get home.”

“You don’t wanna try that way,” Tim warns. “The Feds wouldn’t just haul you back to Earth and drop you off, easy as you please. There’s directives about exposure, and they won’t like that you fucked it all up. You’ve glimpsed behind the curtain and know the truth, and they’re way more likely to just kill you rather than deal with introducing an entire new planet and race of people to the galaxy before they’re ready. If we take you to them… you won’t come back.”

Jason stares in disbelief, and the crew of the  _ Titans _ stares back grimly. 

After a long, quiet moment, Cass stands up. Her steps are completely silent as she moves closer to him, and he gets the impression that she is only ever seen or heard when she chooses to be. She looks up at him. “We will get you home. Do not worry.” 

It takes a moment to realise the voice didn’t come out of her mouth. Her lips didn’t move at all. But Jason heard it, clear as anything else. “I think…” he takes a deep breath. “That would have been comforting if it didn’t freak me the hell out. A warning would’ve been nice.” 

Steph laughs. “I like him,” she says, shooting a look at the captain.

“How did I hear you in my head?” Jason asks. 

“My species is mute,” comes Cass’s nonverbal reply. “We communicate telepathically.”

Jason takes a moment before speaking to formulate his question in the most politic way he can– though he’s never been the most politic of people. “How much access do you have to my brain?” 

“None. I can’t hear inside your mind, it’s only… signals. I send signals you interpret as words, just like sound waves into your ears.”

“She also acts as our translator,” Tim says. “Her subconscious is able to take our verbalizations and filter them, sending them back out as signals we each understand in our own language.”

“So… you aren’t speaking English right now,” Jason ventures. 

Kon slaps the table top, laughing. “Like we would learn an  _ Earth  _ language!”

“No, we’re not speaking your language, it only sounds like it to you. To me, it sounds like you’re speaking Merlish.” 

Aliens, he reminds himself. They’re all aliens. It’s not hard to forget with Tim, looking the way he does, or Steph, with her wings, but the other two could physically pass for human. He’s on an alien ship, with aliens, in space. He can’t go home for at least six months. And what will he say when he does get back to Earth? How does he explain going missing for half a year and then just showing up, healthy, in a broken ship that could never support life for that long even in peak condition. Jason feels overwhelmed. He kind of wants to find a dark corner and roll into a ball. Take a minute to process all of this.

Maybe Cass can see his mounting anxiety, because she says, “Tim, you should show Jason around the ship.”

It’s an escape, and Jason is more than ready to take it. He nods. 

The captain doesn’t dismiss the crew. He just says, “Okay, yeah. Come on,” and steps out of the galley. Not having much of a choice, Jason follows. 

~

“These are the crew quarters,” Tim explains, leading them down a hallway with two heavy looking hatches on either side. The hall ends at a large door that Tim slides open with a hard shove. “And this is the bridge.” 

They step inside, and at first all Jason can see is space. Beyond the glass is inky blackness studded with bright pinpoints, and it’s beautiful, and it’s terrifying, and it’s the last thing he saw before his eyes slid shut for what he thought was going to be forever.

He drags his focus back to the room itself. He’s seen a lot of ships and bridges and cockpits and controls in his career– hell, even before that. This one, despite being completely alien, isn’t even the strangest he’s seen, upon first glance. He immediately starts running through the pre-flight checklist and identifying controls, itching to plant himself in the chair and feel her out, to get familiar with the space, to touch every flip and button and toggle. 

“Go for it,” the captain says, and Jason snaps up straight, looks over to find him watching, head tilted in curiosity, he thinks. His skin looks slightly darker than it was before; maybe it’s just because the lighting is dim in this room, mostly only coming from the console and the far, far away celestial bodies outside. The black of his eyes reflects what little light there is, tiny points like stars, as though his eyes hold their own galaxies. Beautiful.

Raising an eyebrow, he asks, “Really? You’re gonna let some stranger take control of your ship?”

“What’s the worst you could do, fly us a little to the left?” Tim shrugs. 

“Could do a lot worse than that,” Jason argues, even though he shouldn’t be arguing against  _ himself _ . 

“You already look like you know how to fly this thing better than Kon does, and he’s been here two years. You’re not likely to risk damaging her in any way, seeing as she’s your ticket home. And if you did turn out to be crazy or murderous and try something, I could just kill you,” he adds, raising a hand to flash his claws, nonchalant. 

Jason thinks about that, gaze fixed on the sharp tips of his claws. They're short, but look plenty dangerous. Crazily, he wants to touch, test how much pressure it would take to break skin. He nods. “Fair.” 

Tim waves invitingly at the chair. “Go on. You look hungry for it.” 

_ Hungry. _ That makes him pause, but only briefly. Settling himself down, Jason lightly runs his hands over everything. He doesn’t press anything yet, not until he’s sure he knows what it all does. He spends a few minutes acquainting himself with the equipment, asking Tim for confirmation and only getting corrected a few times. The layout is very intuitive and simple, but all markings are in a language he doesn’t understand. 

“It’s Standard,” Tim tells him. He leans over, pointing to a switch on a panel on Jason’s far side, arm brushing against his chest and braided hair close to tickling his ear. “Universal language out here, though I’m pretty rusty at it since I have Cass. See this? I had to re-label it because the Standard words for  _ lock _ and  _ release _ are practically identical and I almost lost our escape pod in the middle of the black.”

Jason inspects the labels on top of and below the switch, which do look different from the others. He looks up, intending to ask if that’s the captain’s native language, but the words catch on his tongue. Tim’s face is close. His skin appears an even darker shade of purple, and this time he thinks it’s not a trick of the light. Jason can smell him, something like water and metal. 

“You  _ did _ lose our escape pod. It took months for me to track down a replacement,” Steph says, entering the room. She has to duck low in order to get her wings inside. 

Tim jerks back, standing upright as his skin turns slightly blue. Steph grins at him, and he glares. “What do you want?” 

“Kon wants to talk to you about something.” 

“It can’t wait?” Tim asks, and he seems irritated. 

She shrugs. “You wanna find out? He might just come find you and carry you off.”

Muttering curses– something about rotten fish jerky?– Tim stomps out, the clang of boots on metal fading down the steps and down the hall. 

Eyeing Jason, Steph whistles. “He let you in his chair?” 

“Does he not usually let strangers fly the ship?” he asks wryly. Of course he wouldn’t, it’s crazy to give control of your ship to someone you just met. 

“He doesn’t even let  _ us _ fly the ship,” she tells him. “Not after that one time with Kon…” Jason raises an eyebrow, surprised. “Tim is  _ very _ protective of his baby. He trusts me with the engine, but never the cockpit.”

“So why me?”

A slow, knowing grin spreads on her lips, and instead of answering his question she says, “Next time you see his skin turn dark like that, you should compliment the color. It’s a sign of respect on his world. They’re very vain about their color– that’s why we painted the ship to match.”

There’s a small nagging feeling in his gut that says he shouldn’t trust her– at least, not about this. But he needs to get along well with these people. He’ll be a guest on this ship for another six months, minimum, and his life is in the hands of the captain and crew. They could very easily decide it’s not worth the trouble to take him home, or that they don’t want him on their ship. So he needs to stay on their good side, and if complimenting Tim’s hue might do the trick, he should try it… right? Steph doesn’t seem  _ malicious _ ; she wouldn’t suggest something that would have him sent out the airlock. Hopefully. 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, and Steph gives a satisfied smile. 

“Come on, I’ll show you to your quarters.” 

She leads him through twists and turns and down stairs, maneuvering herself deftly through spaces that weren’t designed with wings in mind. 

“Is there anyplace on the ship you have room to stretch your wings out?” Jason asks. He wants to see them fully. He knows she’s not really an angel, and he never was particularly religious anyway, but he can’t help feeling like seeing her in her full glory would be a surreal, biblical experience. 

“The cargo hold. Though it’s stuffed to the ceiling right now, so… No.” Her tone is neutral, but he’s sure she can’t be happy about that. Hell,  _ he’s _ sad  _ for _ her, a bird locked in a too-small cage. 

They hear the argument first, furious whispers and mocking laughter, and then turn a corner and see it. 

“You’re so full of shit.” There’s no mistaking the scowl on Tim’s face as anything other than what it is.

Kon is smirking despite the sharp teeth flashing at him. “I’m not the one that put all this freight here. Well, I am, but it was under your orders.” 

“What’s going on?” Steph asks, pulling their attention. 

“The guest quarters are full of crates,” Kon informs them, indicating the two sliding doors that are open enough to see inside and yes, yes the rooms are completely filled. “I was just suggesting Jason stay with one of us. Maybe the captain, since he has the biggest room.” 

“What a fine suggestion!” Steph says delightedly. “Jason, how would you feel sharing a bed with the captain?” 

He just wants to be as unobtrusive as possible. “That’d be fine. You can do whatever you want with me, I’m flexible.” 

It’s only after Steph and Kon both choke back laughter and Tim flushes a dark violet that Jason realises the innuendo in what he said. “I didn’t mean–” he says quickly. “Not like… not that you aren’t attractive, it’s just…” he snaps his mouth shut. 

Tim turns even darker, and the part of him that isn’t horrified and terrified is mesmerized. Tim is fascinating, and beautiful, and Jason wants to touch. He doesn’t know exactly what it means that his skin has changed color, but it’s definitely a reaction of some kind. Maybe he’s angry. Maybe he’s insulted. Maybe Jason should apologise or… 

_ It’s a sign of respect _ , Steph told him. 

“Your, uh. Your color is very nice,” Jason tries. 

There’s a long moment where nothing happens, and then–

Kon covers his mouth with his hand, eyes wide.

Steph whispers, “ _ Yes, _ ” triumphantly. 

And Tim… 

Tim, now a rich, silky, nearly-black, turns on his heel and walks away. 

And Jason is left feeling like he just did something very wrong. “What the hell just happened?”

“What just happened,” says Steph, clapping a hand on his shoulder, “is that Kon owes me fifty bucks. Fork it over!” 

Shaking his head, Kon digs into a pocket. “Amazing. Credit where credit is due.”

She catches the small pouch Kon tosses and takes a bow. “Thank you, thank you.” 

“Seriously,” Jason says, voice hard, “what happened?” 

“Well, we made a bet over who could get Tim to go black–” 

“I don’t care about that part,” he interrupts. “What did I just do? Is he angry? Did I insult him?” 

“Not an  _ insult _ exactly…” Steph says. “It’s just… inappropriate.” 

“Great,” Jason snaps. “Are you  _ trying _ to get me killed? I’m trying to be nice here because you people are literally my only lifeline, and you’re playing around and tricking me into pissing off the captain!” 

“Hey, man, it’s not that big a deal,” Kon says. 

“No, you’re right,” Steph tells Jason, more serious now. “This is a difficult situation for you and you must be totally freaked out. We shouldn’t have made it worse.”

Kon perks up. “Does that mean I get my money back?”

She ignores him. “But I swear, you don’t need to worry about Tim or any of the rest of us hurting you. You don’t need to walk on eggshells.”

“Why should I believe you?” 

With a shrug, she says, “I wouldn’t blame you for not trusting me.”

“Yeah,” he says, turning to leave. “I’m not sure I do.” 

~

Jason stretches his stiff back as he inspects the contents of the kitchen cabinet; the labels are all in languages he doesn’t recognise. The med bay table didn’t make for the most comfortable bed last night, but it was the only place he could find to sleep. Everywhere else on the ship is packed full of cargo, and after the scene he made yesterday there’s no way he was going to ask to stay with the captain– or any of the crew, for that matter. He doesn’t really trust Kon or Steph not to mess with him, and he feels like they’re constantly laughing at him behind his back. Or right in front of his face. They don’t seem to care. He hates being the butt of the joke and not knowing what the joke even is in the first place.

“Looking for coffee?”

He startles, turning around to see Tim who looks small and soft and sleepy. He’s wearing an overlarge sweater and baggy pants tucked into boots that are basically thick socks with hard soles, and his hair is tied up in a knot atop his head, all braids gone. “Um. Yeah. Or tea, or some equivalent.” 

Reaching past him, Tim takes down a red and yellow bag. “Here, I’ll show you how to brew it.” 

Taking mental notes, Jason watches him work the machine on the counter. Tim is silent but for the occasional instructions, and at first he thinks that the captain is still upset from yesterday, but then he figures Tim just isn’t fully awake and functional yet. When they both have hot mugs of coffee, Tim shuffles over to the dining table and plops into a chair. After a brief hesitation, Jason follows. He tries the coffee– and wheezes. 

“Oh god,” he splutters through the burn. “It’s like doing a shot!”

“Yeah, but it’ll wake you up,” Tim mumbles. It takes a minute and several sips for him to look more aware, and when he does he shoots a nervous glance in his direction. “So…” 

“What does it mean,” Jason asks, “to compliment your skin color? I’d like to at least know  _ how _ I’ve insulted someone.”

Tim huffs a sheepish laugh. “It’s, um. It’s like a proposition. A very forward one.”

He nods in slow understanding. “So I might as well have ripped off my clothes and said fuck me?” 

“Yeah, pretty much,” Tim says, and he covers his blue-tinged face with one hand but underneath he’s grinning. 

“I’ll make sure to remember that.” Tim’s head snaps up, but Jason just takes a nonchalant sip of the devil fire coffee, bracing himself for the jolt of it and he only coughs a little as it goes down. Avoiding Tim’s stare, he looks around the room. “If there’s that sort of stigma to your coloring, then why is the ship painted to match you?” 

Tim makes a disdainful flicking movement with his hand, something Jason thinks is his species’ way of rolling their eyes– because their eyes are solid black, so how would you even know if they rolled them? “The others did that. They think it’s fucking hilarious.” He shrugs. “I mean, it is. A little. But if it were anyone else, I would’ve burned this ship to ashes with them inside. Oh here,” he says, reaching down into the pocket of his loose pants. He holds something that looks like a tablet, and Jason takes it. “It’s programmed for English, and you’ve got access to the internet.” 

Unlocking the device, Jason starts familiarizing himself with navigating it. 

“There’s a map of the ship, along with a list of crew duties,” Tim continues, pointing out how to get to them. “Look it over and see what areas you think you’d be able to help out.”

Grateful, Jason scrolls through the list, trying to figure out where he might be useful. He wants something to do, some way to pay these people back for their help. Also, the thought of sitting around aimlessly sits badly in his stomach. Or maybe that’s the coffee. “This is great, thank you.” 

“Most of it right now is basic maintenance and cleaning. There’s usually not a lot to do out here, especially on this ass-end of the galaxy. Backwater system doesn’t even have a fueling station,” he mutters.

“I’ll tell them to get right on that,” Jason promises flatly. 

“So I was thinking…” Tim hesitates, and Jason looks up from the pad. “Maybe, if you’re interested, since there’s not much else to do… I could show you around the bridge more. Teach you how to fly her.” 

“Oh.” He feels a rush of excitement, and it’s like sixty percent about learning to operate a new, alien ship, and forty percent about spending one-on-one time with Tim. He bites back a grin. “I don’t know, it looks like my other options are to scrub down the inside of the escape pod or help Steph lube up the engine.”

“The pod is full of crates.”

“Hm. Lube it is then. You’re in luck, I’m pretty good at that.” 

Tim’s skin flushes a little darker purple, and Jason wonders how much– if any– control he has over it. 

“Good morning,” Cass says, passing by into the kitchen. She pats Tim’s shoulder. “Nice to see you back to normal.” 

“What’s normal?” Jason asks. 

“The outfit,” answers Steph, who comes in after Cass. “What he had on yesterday was his Intimidating Captain Look.”

He looks Tim over again. He’s just as striking as he was the day before, but in a different way. Today he has sweater paws. He looks like he’s ready to roll back into bed. Jason likes this cozy, comfortable Tim. It makes him want to be cozy and comfortable with him. “So you don’t usually braid your hair?”

Tim snorts. “You know how long it takes to do that? Fuck that.”

“Tim!” Steph gasps. “Did you give him the  _ Gorgan coffee _ ? We don’t know if it’s safe for humans!”

He waves her away. “He’s fine.”

Jason’s attention is pulled away from their bickering when Cass sits down at the table and places a plate of food in front of him. She smiles. “Happy first day as crew.” 


	2. piloting the ship out of a dangerous situation (or, how to respect an alien's privacy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason examines the controls. “We do have a lot of repairs to make.” 
> 
> “Yeah,” Tim sighs. “And I don’t think we can do them all out here in the black.”
> 
> “So what’s the plan?”
> 
> “I know a safe place nearby we can limp to. A little out of our way, but he’ll give us what we need to fix up the _Titans_.”
> 
> “He?”
> 
> “The sheriff of Blüdhaven,” Tim says. “Dick Grayson.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big thanks to chibinightowl, noblehunter, akira, gwyxander, themandylion, njw, snow, and skalidra for helping me figure out what kind of alien to make Dick
> 
> also i bumped up the chapter count to three...

Jason is jolted awake by the sudden ringing of a klaxon and Kon’s voice shouting over the intercom, “Everyone wake up and get your asses into gear, we’ve got company!”

A moment later the ship rocks hard and Jason is tossed to the floor, smacking his face into the metal plating. Stumbling to his feet, he yanks up his flight suit and shoves on his boots, then sprints out of the med bay toward the bridge. With the crates stacked everywhere, he has to jump around and over them like some makeshift training course. When he arrives, Tim is in the chair, pulling hard on the yoke and the ship veers sharply to the right, making Jason and Cass brace themselves against whatever they can reach. 

Through the glass, Jason can see black and stars and, off to port, with no clear end or beginning in sight, what looks like a massive, green cloud, but no sign of what could be attacking. Then he spots the monitor. It shows a craft following them, firing off shots that Tim is barely avoiding. There are shots coming from the _ Titans _ too, but they’re far outnumbered by the ones incoming from the attackers. 

One cuts too close to starboard and Tim curses. “Get to the other gun and help Kon.”

Cass is gone in a flash. 

Jason watches the attacking ship. It’s larger than the _ Titans _ and looks sort of like it was put together with pieces from a scrap yard. There’s spikes pointing out from the bow. “Who are they?”

“Raiders. They must have heard your distress signal too.”

_ Shit _ , Jason thinks. He’d considered someone else might have heard the emergency beacon in the time it took for Tim to find him, but hoped that they’d traveled far enough away from his initial position in the past two weeks that anyone that did come looking couldn’t track it. But even with the signal turned off, it probably wasn’t hard for them to spot his craft being towed along behind the _ Titans _.

“I don’t think they came to offer help,” he ventures. “What is that over there?” Leaning forward, he points at the expanse of green. “Can we hide in it?”

“Not a good idea,” Tim says, arms straining as he swerves down. Jason notes distantly that his hue is lighter, more pink. “Seriously unstable gas. You can’t fire inside or else it’ll set off an explosion large enough to take out both ships. You can’t just hide in there until they go away because the gas would play hell with our navigation, targeting, everything. Wouldn’t take long for the engines to completely shut down. We’d be powerless.”

“But they would be too, right? If they followed us in?”

“Yeah, but what’s the point? Just two ships that can’t do shit, and eventually everyone dies.”

Cass has made it to her turret by now and is firing back with gusto, but there’s still a barrage of shots coming at them. Tim is good but he can’t out-maneuver every one of them, steering made harder by the weight of Jason’s craft tethered to their ass. They’re struck again, rocking the ship hard. 

“If we–” Jason bites his tongue, but makes himself finish. “If we cut my ship loose, would they let us go?”

Tim glances over at him. “There’s a chance, if they’re feeling lazy today. But probably not. They’d get a lot more by taking the _ Titans _ . Besides, I think it’s _ you _ they’re really after.”

“Okay,” he says, both relieved and frustrated, as well as unsettled by the fact that he, personally, is being hunted. By alien pirates. Jason looks out the glass at the cloud, looks at the ship’s controls, looks at the captain. “I have an idea.”

“Oh yeah?”

“How would you feel about losing another escape pod?” 

“If it gets us out of here, I love it. But they definitely won’t stop for a pod.” 

“We set the pod to blow– you do have explosives, right?” He barely waits for Tim to nod. “Okay, we set it to blow and lure them into the cloud, drop the pod, and then punch it so when it goes off we’re far enough away to not explode. Then we fly right out.”

“_ Fly right out _,” Tim echoes. “I just told you the navigation and monitors will be on the fritz. Once we go into that soup we’re blind. I can’t guarantee we’ll be going in the right direction.”

“I can.”

“What?”

“I can pilot. You go and set up the pod.” 

“You’ve been learning to fly this thing for a few days and you think you can get us through this?” the captain asks incredulously. 

“I’ve been flying my whole life. I was a combat pilot for eight years,” Jason answers. “Yes, I can do it.” 

Tim hesitates. “Steph,” he barks, “how’s she doing?” 

“That last hit did some real damage! We can’t take much more,” she answers, sounding harried. 

“Just do what you can, babe,” he says. He gives Jason one last considering look, then jumps up, freeing the seat for him to take. “You’ll have only a few seconds before the engines start to shut down, so orient yourself and go for hard burn as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir.” 

“Don’t kill us!” he yells over his shoulder, already on his way to the escape pod. 

Taking control of the ship, Jason lets himself fall back into battle-mode. For the past three years he’s been a test pilot, but three years isn’t that long in the greater scheme of things and a soldier’s programming never really leaves them. His mind goes calm, shutting down everything but what he needs right in this moment.

Keeping the ship close but out of range of the gas, he flies parallel to the cloud. He dodges the shots as best he can, struggling slightly with the weight of his ship tethered to their ass, but not as much as Tim was. Jason has only ever flown this craft under these conditions; he doesn’t know how it feels unburdened, like Tim is used to. 

Tim’s voice comes on over the ship-wide intercom. “Okay, we’re ready.”

“Ready for what?” Kon asks. 

“Roger,” Jason confirms. “Everybody hold on to something.”

“Ready for _ what _ ?” Kon repeats. Changing direction, Jason guides the ship into the cloud at a perpendicular angle. “Oh what the _ fuck _ are–”

“_ Quiet _,” Tim snaps.

Outside the viewing glass is no longer black, but a hazy green. Jason doesn’t count the seconds, because he doesn’t know exactly how many he has before the systems start to go haywire. He needs to do this fast, but not too fast; he needs to wait until he’s lured the other ship in to follow. 

And there they are, showing up on the monitor screen, the feed crackling and glitching, and then going dark all-together. Jason ejects the escape pod. 

Simultaneously, he drops the power to the port-side engine– not cutting it completely, because there’s no guarantee he’d get it back in this gas– while raising it on the starboard, causing the ship to swing around. When he’s judged he’s brought it a hundred and eighty degrees, he brings the port-side back up to full throttle and guns it, pushing the _ Titans _ as fast as she’ll go. He doesn’t see the enemy ship, even though they should have been directly behind– now directly in front– but he doesn’t let himself worry that he miscalculated the turn. It’s better to go with his initial judgement than to try and compensate with no point of reference to orient himself with. 

Nearly all of the screens and lights on the console have shut off.

“Now!” he yells, praying the comm is still online. 

He doesn’t hear the boom from the explosion, but he knows Tim set it off when, a moment later, a shock-wave catches the ship and threatens to knock her off course. Jason manages to ride it out and keep straight… he hopes. He holds his breath.

Finally, the gas clears. 

But he can’t relax yet. He has to make sure everyone onboard is okay. “Sound off.” 

“Wha– ...uck was– ...at?” Kon asks, question broken by the damaged speaker system.

Then Steph. “...ot a smal– ...ire down he–” 

“On my way,” comes Cass’s voice, not over the comm but in his head. 

“Captain?” Jason asks when he doesn’t respond. All he hears is static. “_ Tim _?”

He slows the engines, and turns to jump up and go find him, but then the captain is running into the bridge, skin a lighter pink than Jason has seen before. He stops, one hand braced on the doorway, loose shirt threatening to slip off the other shoulder, and stares at Jason.

Coming up to stand at attention, Jason reports, “I think there’s a fire in the engine room.” It’ll be a little while until he can fully shake himself out of soldier-mode. 

“They’ve got it,” Tim dismisses distantly. He takes a step closer, hand falling to his side. “You actually did it. That was… You’re amaz–”

“What the fuck did you just do?” Kon interrupts, storming into the room. “Are you out of your puny human mind?”

“Hey,” Tim says sharply. His coloring is quickly growing darker. “He just saved us and the ship.”

“He got lucky! That should have killed us all.”

“Do we look dead to you?” Jason asks, crossing his arms. “It worked. I knew what I was doing.”

“Bullshit. You barely know how to fly this thing, and you know fuck-all about those gas clouds. You risked everyone’s life on a gamble– for what, to impress Tim?” he says scornfully. “_ And _ we lost an escape pod, _ full _ of cargo!”

“Next time I’ll just let the pirates board, then, huh?”

“Next time I’ll hand you over to them myself,” Kon threatens. “Then they’ll leave the rest of us alone.” 

There’s a loud hissing sound, and it takes a moment for Jason to realize it’s coming from Tim, who’s planted himself between the two of them. Jason can’t see his face because he’s facing Kon, but he can see his arms and hands, bare below the elbow, and the skin is the nearly-black violet of an overripe berry. He hasn’t seen this color since that first day, when Jason accidentally propositioned him. 

When Tim speaks, his voice sounds warped, like it’s coming from underwater. “_ Back off _,” he says fiercely. 

Kon rears back, shocked. “Holy shit… You actually like him.” Then, slowly, bafflingly, he starts to grin. “You _ like _ him!” he repeats, sounding like a teasing child. 

Tim just hisses again in response, and Kon throws up his hands in surrender. 

“Okay, all right, I got it, I’m leaving,” he says, placating, as he backs out the door. Before he goes he glances at Jason. “Good luck.” 

Tim stays watching the empty doorway for a long minute, only turning around when Jason clears his throat. 

“What, uh… What was that?” 

Instead of answering, Tim stalks closer and brings his hands up to cradle Jason’s face. His claws have extended, it seems, and also his needle-like teeth. They’re long enough to poke out over his bottom lip, and very pointy. And there’s that smell again, the water-and-metal scent. Jason is reminded of those terrifying sea creatures that live in the deep ocean. But he’s not terrified of Tim. Because Tim is touching his cheek very gently, careful to keep any sharpness away. 

“You’re hurt,” he says, voice still wet-sounding. 

“Are you a fish?” Jason asks. 

Tim pauses, and then laughs. His skin is fading back to the usual purple. “In a way, I guess. You’re bruised here.” He lightly taps Jason’s cheekbone. “What happened?” 

Thinking back, Jason says, “The ship rocked and I fell off the exam table. Hit my face on the floor. It’s not bad. In what way are you a fish?” he asks, eyes roaming over the visible parts of Tim, looking for… something. Gills? There aren’t any gills that he can see. 

“My species evolved from the sea. Kept some of the traits. Are you in pain?” 

“No. You went black again.”

Tim’s face turns slightly blue. “Yeah. I did.”

“What does that mean?”

He pulls his hands away, and Jason tries to hide his disappointment. “It– it can mean a lot of things.”

“What did it mean in this particular situation?”

“Just that… I value you.”

“_ Value _,” they hear, quietly snorted, and they both turn to see heads peeking around the door-frame. 

“Is there no fucking privacy on this ship?” Tim asks, flushing more blue. 

“No,” Steph answers, sounding as if Tim is an idiot. A couple of her feathers are singed, but she doesn’t seem bothered by it. Cass shakes her head. 

“You’re supposed to be open with your feelings,” Kon says. “You’re not being very Merlish.” 

“That,” Tim snaps, “is a stupid stereotype. Just because I’m a giant walking mood ring–”

“Giant!” Steph cackles. 

“–doesn’t mean I _ like _ having my emotions on display.”

“So you really can’t help it,” Jason muses. 

Tim grinds his teeth, which have shifted back to normal. “No.”

Jason considers what that must be like, to have no control over when and how others see what you’re feeling; to be completely exposed, betrayed by your own body. “That sucks,” he offers elegantly. 

Tim looks up at him, surprised. “Oh. Yeah, um. It does.” 

“So the fangs and the claws…”

“Means he was ready to rip me to shreds for you,” Kon supplies, sounding not as upset about that as he maybe should be. 

Jason stupidly wants to place his hand over his heart and swoon like a Victorian lady. “Really?” 

“It was instinctual,” Tim defends, keeping his head high but not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I needed to protect.” 

“Do I have to worry about Kon selling me off to pirates?”

“No, he wouldn’t really do that.”

“Because I’m… valuable to you?”

Tim nibbles his lip a moment before answering, “Partly. He’s also just… not a terrible person.” 

“You hear that?” Kon says with fake pride. “Not terrible!” 

“And,” Tim continues, ignoring him, “you’re part of the crew now. I mean, if you want to be.”

“Are you offering me a job?”

He finally looks up at Jason. “What do you say? Want to pilot my ship? At least… while you’re with us.”

“I’d love to,” Jason says. For the first time, he doesn’t mind that it will take so long to get back home. 

“This is so gross,” Steph whispers. “Why do I feel like I’m intruding on something?”

“Because you are,” Tim tells her, not taking his fathomless eyes away from Jason.

“We should go,” Cass decides, pulling the other two away. “Lots of repairs to start on.” 

Kon and Steph’s protests can be heard going down the hall, and then fade into silence, leaving the bridge quiet. 

Jason examines the controls. “We do have a lot of repairs to make.” 

“Yeah,” Tim sighs. “And I don’t think we can do them all out here in the black.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“I know a safe place nearby we can limp to. A little out of our way, but he’ll give us what we need to fix up the _ Titans _.”

“He?”

“The sheriff of Blüdhaven,” Tim says. “Dick Grayson.” 

~

With the damage done to pretty much every system on the ship, including navigation, it takes almost three weeks for them to reach their destination. They’re able to do some repairs on the way, but the bulk of it they simply don’t have the parts for, or they need to be outside the ship to complete. 

As they’re approaching the small moon of Blüdhaven– orbiting a massive cerulean planet that isn’t fit for life, according to Tim– Jason eagerly watches it grow larger and larger through the viewing glass. For a minute he can’t parse out what exactly he’s seeing, just blobs of muted yellow and brown and red. “Is the water… yellow?”

“Light refracts differently here,” Tim explains. “The oceans on this moon are slightly different than on Earth. While the water you’re used to absorbs other colors and appears blue, here it absorbs everything but yellow. Same with the sky, as you’ll see when we land.” 

Tim places a call. The long-range transmission is grainy; Jason can barely make out the face that appears. 

“Tim!” the alien greets, clearly delighted. “I thought you were headed to Dramon. What are you doing here?”

The captain smiles back, clearly happy to see him as well. “Hey, Dick. Ran into some trouble. We could use some patching up, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, you know you’re always welcome. Hey, guess what? There’s talk that a human vessel was spotted outside their system!”

Tim pales. “O-oh, really? How interesting.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t heard yet. Everyone’s trying to find it.”

Tim glances over at Jason, who is just out of frame. “Yeah, I may have heard something about that. You can fill me in when we land. Usual spot?”

“I’ll meet you there.” Dick reaches over to end the transmission but stops when Tim says, 

“Oh, and. Could you bring a ship? A big one.”

Dick sounds confused but replies with an affirmative. “Sure.”

When the screen has gone dark, Jason asks, “You’re sure we can trust this guy?” 

“Always,” Tim says firmly. He looks up at him. “Don’t worry about it. Dick loves me, he would never hurt me.”

Jason’s lips tighten around the _ He loves you? _ he wants to ask. It’s not his business if a handsome man loves Tim. They don’t really have anything going on between them other than some tentative flirting, so it’s not like he has a right to be jealous, or anything. Besides, why _ wouldn’t _ this guy love Tim? He’s so smart and beautiful, and he picks out the vegetables from his food with the cutest disgusted face. 

“Just a little nerve-wracking, being the target of an intergalactic bounty hunt. You warned me against law-enforcement, and now are taking me to a sheriff.” 

“Lucky for all of us, Dick isn’t the Feds,” Tim says. “I wouldn’t put you in danger.”

Jason hides a stupid smile. Then he realizes something. “How do people know, anyway? The one ship that saw me– those raiders– was destroyed, right? There’s no way they made it out of that cloud.”

Tim hums contemplatively. “They must have sent out a message before. Maybe called for back-up? But there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“Do you think they know I’m with you? I mean, on the _ Titans _?”

“Let’s hope not.”

“We can’t keep hauling around my ship in plain sight. Someone’s going to spot it.” 

“I have a plan for that. Now, pay attention while I show you how to land.”

Taking mental notes, he watches closely as Tim pilots the ship down to the surface. They land in a field on the outskirts of a city– the capitol, Tim tells him. About two seconds after they touch down, Steph is throwing open the cargo bay doors and launching herself into the sky, wings spread wide. Jason watches through the viewing glass as she dips and soars through a clear yellow sky (just as Tim had said). It’s every bit as marvelous as he had hoped.

“Don’t you want to go walk on an alien world?” Tim suggests. “It’ll be a first for humanity.” 

Grinning, Jason takes off, running through the ship, through the open doors. Into tall, thin grass that sways gently in the breeze. He stands there, on a moon orbiting a star not his own. Looking up at the sky, he wonders exactly how far away he is from home. It feels so very far away. In this moment, he understands just how very much he is the stranger in a strange land, just like in the old novel. 

Around him are grass and trees and flowers, but not any kind of grass and trees and flowers that he’s seen before. The vegetation is in various shades of red, rather than green. It– _ he _ feels lighter, like the gravitational pull is slightly less than what he’s used to back home. Certainly less than onboard the ship. 

Kon comes running past him, and then jumps, and flies into the air, and… stays flying. 

“What the fuck?” Jason says. 

A moment later there’s a rustling sound, and he glances back to find Tim approaching, picking his way through the thigh-high grass. He’s changed into his Captain Look, with the fitted pants and long coat and boots. His hair, however, is loose around his shoulders, tucked behind one ear. Behind him sits the _ Titans _, and Jason turns around to face her, realizing he hasn’t seen her from the outside yet. 

The exterior of the ship is grey, shades changing from one panel to the next, and Jason wonders how much is original, how much has been replaced over the years. And she’s certainly seen a lot of years. He knew that already– could tell by the interior– but it’s more clear now, with how the outside has been patched in so many places. Still, she’s a beauty. 

Tearing his eyes away from the incredible things, he asks, “Kon can fly?”

“Kon can fly,” Tim confirms. “You haven’t seen it yet because he’s been on the ship so long, too far away from any yellow stars. The radiation, it powers him up.”

Fascinating. “Is there anything else he can do now?”

“My hearing is super good,” Kon yells from across the field. “And I can see your organs!” 

“That’s unsettling,” Jason says.

“He’s also incredibly strong,” Tim adds.

“How strong?”

“I could lift the ship! Wanna see?”

“No!” Tim shouts. “Last time, you knocked around everything inside!” 

Cass comes out and stands next to them. They watch the two fly around, at one point play wrestling in mid-air. 

“They’re like puppies,” Jason says, his words muffled by the noise of a large incoming craft. It’s clearly far newer than the _ Titans _, more sleek and curved in design and still somewhat shiny. 

It lands nearby and the sheriff, Dick, exits, wading through the dense grass to them. He’s humanoid (and Jason wonders when or if he’ll get to see a species that isn’t) with tan skin and layered ridges flowing up the bridge of his nose, up his forehead, and, presumably, under his hair. The same ridges run in a line down the back of his hand, down to the tip of his middle and index fingers. He grabs Tim in a tight hug, and then Cass. He gives Kon a friendly slap on the back when he drops down. Steph is too busy flying around their heads to greet him. 

He looks at Jason, who gets the sense he’s being carefully scrutinized, even though Dick’s face stays neutral and friendly. What surprises Jason is how incredibly handsome he finds the alien. Who knew ridges did it for him? (But apparently the strange and unusual is his thing, he figures, glancing at Tim.) He’s not wearing a recognizable uniform, but the aura of power and authority radiating off of him is obvious. This is a man who can successfully police an entire moon. 

“I haven’t met you before,” the sheriff says. 

“This is my new pilot,” Tim introduces. 

Dick’s eyebrows shoot up. “You let someone else take the yoke? This guy must be pretty special.” 

“I am,” Jason says, and reaches out his hand to shake. “Jason Todd. Nice to meet you.” 

Dick stares at the hand in confusion for a moment, before he slowly copies the movement. It’s like he’s never shaken hands before. 

_ He’s never shaken hands before _, Jason realizes, also realizing how dumb he is. This is an alien, on an alien moon, and human customs don’t apply here– but they might be recognized; the others had said people out here watch Earth programming. He releases the sheriff’s hand. 

Eyes narrowed, Dick looks from Jason’s hand to Tim to the little spacecraft tethered to the _ Titans _. “Tim, dear,” he says slowly, “what did you bring to my back door?”

“An adventure?” Tim offers. 

“Did this adventure happen to originate in the Sol system?” he asks shrewdly. 

“Might be.”

Jason stands very still at attention while Dick looks him over again, assessing. His heart is pounding, but Tim doesn’t seem overly concerned. 

“My ship,” Dick says. “You need it for that, huh?” he asks, nodding toward Jason’s. 

“Well you see, mine is full of cargo right now,” Tim replies reasonably.

“So I’m keeping this thing until after you drop your shipment?” 

“If you don’t mind.”

“Why would I mind?” he asks, tiredly rubbing his temples. “Sure, no problem, I’ll keep the galaxy’s biggest secret in my garage for you.”

“Great!” Tim smiles and gives Dick another hug, which Jason– nope, doesn’t care about.

Not at all. 

Dick flashes him a knowing glance, as if he can see exactly what Jason is feeling. 

“But the _ Titans _ has to stay here,” the sheriff continues, eyeing the stacks on stacks of crates visible through the open cargo hold doors. “I don’t know what you have in there, and I _ don’t want _ to know,” he adds firmly, making Tim snap his mouth shut. “You do what business you want, but I’m still a man of the law. I have to draw the line somewhere.”

Tim shrugs. “Fair enough.”

While Dick heads back to his own ship, Jason asks in a low voice, “What are we transporting?” 

“Nothing dangerous,” Tim assures. 

“Not dangerous… but illegal,” he guesses. He recalls a detail that had slipped by him, with everything else going on, that first day. The crew had been adamant about staying far away from the authorities. 

“That a problem?” Tim asks, and he voices it casually but Jason can see him go tense, like he’s afraid of the answer. Afraid Jason will have a problem with it, with him. 

“No,” Jason replies just as casually. “But you could have told me _ before _ I agreed to become your pilot. It’s nice to _ know _ when you’re committing a crime.”

Tim snorts, and starts across the field. “Yeah, like _ that’s _ what the Feds would care about if they got their hands on _ you _.”

The crew loads themselves into Dick’s ship, each with a knapsack of whatever they’ll need. Tim had told them to plan for a two day stay, at least. Apparently it will take that long to source all of the parts they need before they can come back and get the repairs started. The _ Hermes PT14 _ is brought into the hold, and then they’re taking off into the sky. 

The trip to Dick’s home near the edge of the city is short. It’s a tall building, the bulk of it being a forty-foot-high space for vehicles (where Dick leaves the ship), with an apartment on top. Dick shows them to two guest rooms, each with a single bed inside, and Steph and Cass take one. 

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” Jason offers, leaving the remaining room for Kon and Tim, but Kon shakes his head.

“I’ll take the couch.” He gives Tim a very unsubtle nudge. “You two take the bed.”

Jason looks away so he won’t see what Tim’s skin does. Whatever he feels about the situation, he should have the right to keep his own feelings private.

After they’ve settled in, Dick leaves to get back to work. 

The crew takes advantage of roomy showers and a kitchen stocked full of fresh food that Jason carefully examines before any of it goes near his mouth, curious but wary. He’s eaten a lot of new food on the _ Titans _, and some of it, he’s found, does not sit well with human physiology. When they’ve cleaned up and eaten, they head out on foot to the market. 

The market is huge. Slap-dash buildings appear to have no order to them, and in-between are stalls and tents wherever they could be fit, filled with food and goods of every kind. Much of it is unrecognizable to Jason. There is no road, really, just a sandy dirt path through and around the structures. There’s music playing from different sources. People are calling out to each other, inviting or arguing or laughing. 

The people themselves are varied, so many different species that Jason can’t keep count. There are people with green skin, people with long necks, people with more appendages than he’s used to seeing. Some have wings, some have horns, some have no ears. He even sees what looks like a sentient slug, bartering with a vendor.

There’s so much to see and smell and hear, it’s overwhelming. 

Kon goes with Steph to get the parts for the ship while Cass is sent to resupply food and other goods. Jason stays with the captain. 

“We’ve got some shopping to do,” Tim says, leading him through the closely-pressed crowd. 

“Shopping?” 

“For clothes.”

He glances down at the worn pants and tight shirt Kon had lent him. He’s been borrowing clothes from Kon for almost two months now, since he only has his flight suit and no one else on the ship is the right size. “Oh. Yeah, that’d be good.” 

Some heads turn as they pass. Jason asks, “Should I be out in public like this?” 

“No one’s going to assume you’re the… you-know-what. With that brilliant disguise, you could be from any number of worlds.”

Jason nervously adjusts the red fabric loosely wrapped around his head, covering everything but his eyes. “Then why do people keep staring at me?”

Pausing, Tim looks back at him. “Why wouldn’t they?” he asks, skin darkening slightly. He turns back around and keeps walking.

Jason doesn’t mention the color thing. He never does, now that he knows that he has no control over it. It doesn’t seem fair to point it out. If Tim wants him to know how he’s feeling, he can tell him. Jason doesn't have the right to assume anything based on Tim’s involuntary bodily responses. 

Tim buys Jason a few sets of new clothes, and then they head back to Dick’s place. They’re the first ones to return, alone in the house, and Jason feels relieved. The _ Titans _ is a small ship, and he’s never very far away from another crew member at any given moment. This is the most solitude he’s felt since he was in the _ Hermes PT14 _. Tim is here, but he doesn’t mind too much. He doesn’t feel like an intrusion on his privacy. If anything, his captain feels good to be around. 

Tim stays up late working on his tablet, curled up on the couch until well after the sun has set and the others have all returned. He picks at the dinner Dick makes, as does everyone else. Jason is the only one to clear his plate (after he deems it safe). A master chef Dick is not, but Jason has never been overly picky. He eats what he’s given. 

Eventually everyone else goes to bed, and Tim is kicked off the couch by Kon. He seems at a loss as to what to do with himself then, clearly not wanting to head to their room but going anyway, and Jason tries not assign a reason to that. 

After taking turns in the bathroom to change into sleep clothes, they stand on either side of the bed for a long, awkward minute. Tim stares at the covers while Jason fights not to stare at Tim’s loose shirt and baggy pants, at the way they swallow him up. At how soft and comfortable he looks.

“You can go stay with Dick, if you want,” Jason says. 

Tim jerks his head up. “You don’t– you want me to leave?”

“I don’t _ want _ you to, I just thought… You might be more comfortable there. With him.” 

Frowning, Tim asks, “Why?”

He shrugs. “You two seem close.” 

“We are, but… Oh. Oh, no, no, not– we’re not. Like that.”

“Okay,” Jason says, biting back a smile. He throws back the blankets on his side and slides underneath. “Good.” 

Tim hesitates, and then follows. The bed is large enough that they don’t touch, but it’s close. He reaches over to tap a panel on the wall, turning off the lights. “Are you? Like that?”

“Me and Dick?” Jason teases. He can practically hear Tim roll his wrist. 

“No, you and… anyone. Is there someone on Earth?” 

“No.” Jason swallows. “There’s no one. There’s… no one at all.” 

No one. Jason doesn’t have a partner, or family, or even friends, really. He has coworkers, and acquaintances. No one that is heart-broken over him having gone missing in space. Except maybe the NASA command team because the _ Hermes PT14 _ is a billion dollar piece of equipment.

For a moment, Jason wonders what the point of going back would be. 

He clears his throat. “Is there someone waiting for you on your home planet?”

“I don’t have a mate,” Tim says. 

“You don’t sound upset about that.”

“Should I?”

“I suppose not.”

“Are you sad you have no mate?”

Jason smiles. The word _ mate _ sounds odd to him, but that must be the closest translation to what Tim is actually saying. He wonders what that word sounds like in Tim’s language. “No, I’m not. I guess it leaves me open to new possibilities, huh?”

“New possibilities,” Tim echos softly. 

Silence settles comfortably between them. 

“I like this. Talking to you in the dark,” Jason says.

“Am I that ugly?”

Jason stifles his laughter, not wanting to wake up the girls in the next room. “Not at all. I mean that it feels like we’re on even ground. I can’t see anything you don’t want to show me.”

Tim doesn’t answer for a long time, long enough that Jason thinks maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Maybe he made him uncomfortable. 

But then Tim answers. “I like it too. But,” he adds, “full disclosure: I can see pretty well in the dark.” 

Jason turns his face in Tim’s direction. “I don’t mind.” 

He sleeps well and wakes up happy. Tim is gone from the room, and after Jason gets dressed, he finds him in the kitchen, sipping Gorgan coffee with Dick. 

“Do you have anything that won’t burn my insides to ash?” he asks, and Dick laughs, getting up to show him how to brew something more tame. 

“Humans are weak,” Tim mutters sleepily. 

“Weak?” Jason gasps in mock-outrage. Abandoning his coffee-making, he walks over to Tim and easily scoops him up in a bridal carry, swinging him around the room. “You call this weak?”

Tim yelps, only just dropping his mug on the counter in time. He seems torn between fighting to get away and holding on closer, fingers clenching Jason’s brand new shirt so tightly his claws poke holes in the material. He starts to darken, and Jason sets him down immediately. As much as he would like to ignore Tim’s coloring, the fact is that it _ is _ a reaction of some kind, and Jason can’t pretend not to know that. 

“Sorry,” he whispers, feeling guilty for causing him to go dark, and also pleased that Tim reacted like that, and then guilty again for being pleased. 

Carefully, Tim pries his nails out of his shirt. 

“It’s fine,” he says, turning away. He quickly grabs his mug and sits at the table, picking up his tablet to begin working. 

Dick gives Jason a coffee along with a sympathetic smile. 

Tim is very business-like for the rest of the day, focused on hunting down any remaining parts they need for repairs. Cass takes Jason back to the market so he can explore the alien world. With her telepathic abilities, he can understand every word being spoken around him. It’s utterly fascinating.

They spend one more night at Dick’s, and then he flies them back to the _ Titans _ the next day to start patching her up. On their way out, Dick pulls Jason aside.

“Tim won’t say it, but he–” 

“If he isn’t comfortable saying it,” Jason interrupts, “then I don’t want to hear it. I’ll wait until he wants to say it.”

Smiling, Dick pats him on the shoulder. “Okay. I’ll see you next time.”

“I’m going home after the drop off.”

“You sure about that?”

Jason walks through the high, red grass. Thinking. Does he want to go home? He has to, right? It’s not the first time since they landed that he’s wondered this, but hearing it from someone else makes him seriously question his plans. 

Shoving those thoughts aside to ponder later, he does what he can to help fix up the _ Titans _. It’s new technology, but he’s always been good with machines and he learns fast. They stay grounded in the field outside Blüdhaven for four days. 

The second night, Tim invites Jason to sleep in his quarters. 

“You shouldn’t have to stay in the med bay,” he explains, examining his dinner too hard while Kon and Cass act as though they aren’t listening from the other side of the table. “I have room, and. Well, it wasn’t so bad. At Dick’s. Right?” 

“Yeah,” Jason quickly replies. “Yeah, it– it wasn’t bad. Thanks, I’d like that.” 

After dinner, he gathers his few belongings and transfers them to Tim’s quarters. To _ their _ quarters. The bunk there is smaller than the bed in Dick’s guest room was. Their arms and feet brush occasionally. Tim’s skin feels sleek, unlike human skin in a way Jason can’t quite identify, but it’s nice. 

Tim shows him how to launch from the moon’s surface and fly out into space. Jason watches Blüdhaven grow smaller and smaller, and then disappear. 

Rising from the pilot seat, Tim waves him forward and orders, “Get us to Dramon.”

“Aye, Captain,” Jason replies, taking the yoke. 

Tim reaches up as if to touch him, but then drops his hand. Jason wants to grab his hand and pull it back. Draw Tim down to sit on his lap. Wrap his arms around him and drag his fingers through his hair and taste him. 

He doesn’t move. He refuses to force or rush anything. Tim should be able to make his feelings known on his own time, when he’s ready. 

Tim steps away. “Engines full throttle. We have a lot of time to make up for. Don’t want the shipment be late,” he says as he walks out of the bridge. “Dramonites are not a forgiving people.” 


End file.
